Thursday, October 06, 2005

Movie Review "The 40 Year Old Virgin" (2005)

Andy is a 40 year old single man living in a singles apartment with not much of a social life. One night he is invited by his co workers in an electronic store chain to play poker with them, soon stories about past relationships and 'encounters' fill the stale smoke filled air and it is revealed that Andy, pretty much, has not done the deed. His friends now engage in elaborate schemes (not before telling everybody else in the office that he's a virgin) to get him laid. While this devirginizing crusade of insanity ensues, Andy meets Trish, a single mom working accross the street...

I had been anticipating the Philippine release of The 40 Year Old Virgin since I first heard of it online a few months ago, With the success orf cousin-movie Wedding Crashers, my anticipation for this Steve Carrel (who I think is one of the funniest men in Hollywood right now) headliner grew and grew and grew. Then I saw the movie poster that said "Coming Soon...Hopefully". I was stoked. The day finally came yesterday when I went to the theater right after work and expected a side splitting 2 hours.

Too bad sometimes, anticipations grow larger than films can deliver. 'Virgin' in essence is not really 'that' good of a movie. Although I applaud Steve Carrel for being effortlessly funny. Whatever this guy does is magic. The supporting cast was less than mediocre. With a cast of unknowns, with the exception for TV star and Anchorman buddy Paul Rudd and The Interpreter's Catherine Keener, the movie was plagued with a lot of sub par performances. Sure there were a lot of laughs, A LOT of them, but I guess what contributed to the mediocre experience was the fact that I was the only one laughing. I HATE, HATE, HATE it when that happens. I feel a certain disdain for the rest of the audience for not being able to get the jokes, at the same time, embarrased for myself because I look like an idiot laughing by my lonesome. There were a lot of very 'american' jokes like the Pakistani guy referring to the "Dirty Sanchez", that a lot of the Philippine audiences could not relate to, but there was a ton of slapstick and 'green' jokes enough to make girls giggle, like the opening scene where Andy walks to the bathroom with his morning wood poking through his boxers.

It kind of makes me think that this movie may not have been as successful if it had not been tailwhipped by the storm which was Wedding Crashers two weeks before it's release. 'Virgin' became no.1 in the US Box office for 2 weeks because people who were still high on 'Crashers' saw the movie and laughed at the similar off color humor that made 'Crashers' a gem. Seeing that the local release was two months late, It kinda blew it's steam with no real bang, kind of like premature...you know what.